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Rashida Tlaib

individualLast updated: January 21, 2019

Overview

The eldest of 14 children, Rashida Tlaib was born to Muslim parents on July 24, 1976 in Detroit, Michigan. Her mother hailed from a region near the West Bank city of Ramallah, and her father was born in an Israeli suburb outside of Jerusalem. Tlaib earned a BA in Political Science/Government from Wayne State University …

The eldest of 14 children, Rashida Tlaib was born to Muslim parents on July 24, 1976 in Detroit, Michigan. Her mother hailed from a region near the West Bank city of Ramallah, and her father was born in an Israeli suburb outside of Jerusalem.

Tlaib earned a BA in Political Science/Government from Wayne State University in 1998, and a JD from Thomas Cooley Law School in 2004. She subsequently found employment as a social worker before taking jobs at the International Institute of Metro Detroit, the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services, and the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice — where a majority of her co-workers were, by Tlaib’s description, “pretty much socialists” whom she “love[d].”

Tlaib entered the world of politics in 2004 as an intern to Michigan State Representative Steve Tobocman. In 2008 she was the Arab-American outreach coordinator for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in Michigan. Later that year, Tlaib herself was elected, as a Democrat, to the Michigan House of Representatives, where she would serve from 2009-15.

In a November 2017 tweet, Tlaib criticized U.S. Senator Kamala Harris for having met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss cooperation between California and Israel on water management, agriculture, and cyber-security issues. “I am one of your supporters & donors,” Tlaib told Harris. “Hoping you are still part of the resistance to racism against ALL people. This picture [of Netanyahu] says otherwise.”

In December 2017, Tlaib shared a Facebook post in which Muslim activist Linda Sarsour had expressed support for Ahed Tamimi, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl whom Israeli authorities had recently incarcerated for assaulting an IDF soldier and proclaiming that “everyone must” attack Israeli Jews by means of “stabbings, martyrdom-seeking operations [i.e. suicide bombings], throwing stones.” “Absolutely inhumane to target a young girl for fighting against racist policies,” wrote Tlaib. “Her voice should be lifted.”[2]

Tlaib is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which in 2018 endorsed her campaign to fill Michigan’s 13th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House, which John Conyers had vacated when he resigned in December 2017. At a February 2018 DSA meeting in Detroit, Tlaib was asked if she planned to openly “run as a socialist.” She replied: “Yeah, um it’s, it’s — we got to win.” Tlaib then lamented that “people have tainted that word,” and said she saw it as her duty to proudly “explain [that] the labor movement was founded on socialism.”

Other supporters of Tlaib’s congressional bid included J Street, Michael Moore, and Linda Sarsour, the latter of whom spent a day campaigning door-to-door with Tlaib. By August 2018, Tlaib had raised more than $30,000 from Islamists affiliated with CAIR, MPAC, MSA, and MAS.[3]

During the 2018 campaign as well, Tlaib proposed amending the Civil Rights Act to allow lawsuits based on “disparate impact” rather than requiring plaintiffs to prove that they were victims of deliberate discrimination.

After Tlaib narrowly won the Democratic primary on August 7, she draped herself in a Palestinian flag while celebrating with her supporters. In her victory speech, she promised to “fight back against every racist and oppressive structure that needs to be dismantled.”

When she was subsequently asked by Great Britain’s Channel 4 News if she planned to vote against U.S. military aid to Israel, Tlaib responded: “Absolutely, if it has something to do with inequality and not access to people having justice…. If you’re going to be a country that discriminates on somebody solely based on their faith, solely based on their skin color … I will be using my position in Congress so that no country, not one, should be able to get aid from the U.S. when they still promote that kind of injustice….”

When asked to describe a proper “solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Tlaib replied: “One state. It has to be one state. Separate but equal does not work…. This whole idea of a two-state solution, it doesn’t work.”

On November 6, 2018, Tlaib won her congressional election with 84.6% of the vote. CAIR founder and CEO Nihad Awad congratulated Tlaib on her “historic victory of becoming the first Muslim and Palestinian woman in the U.S. Congress.”

On January 3, 2019 — her first official day as a new Member of Congress, which was now in Democratic control for the first time in eight years — Tlaib told a raucous crowd of supporters at a MoveOn.org reception near Capitol Hill that Donald Trump’s days as President were numbered: “We’re going to go in there, and we’re going to impeach the motherfu**er.” When she was sworn into office, Tlaib wore a red thobe (a traditional Palestinian gown) and took her oath on a 1734 English translation of a Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. That same day, a member of Tlaib’s entourage, the Palestinian-American comedian Mo Amer, used a Post-it bearing the name “Palestine” along with an arrow pointing to Israel on a wall map in Tlaib’s office, to indicate that this should be Israel’s new name.

A notable attendee at Tlaib’s swearing-in ceremony was the executive director and co-founder of Al-Awda, Abbas Hamideh, who has repeatedly: (a) stated his belief that “Israel does not have a right to exist”; (b) equated Zionism with Nazism and the genocidal ideology of ISIS; and (c) voiced support for Hezbollah and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, whom he regards as “the most honorable Arab-Muslim leader of our lifetime.” Following the swearing-in ceremony, Hamideh posted to his Twitter account a photo of himself and Tlaib holding up a large painting of the newly elected congresswoman. He also attended a private dinner with Tlaib, her family, and a number of her friends and activists.